Chapter 4 - The Lie About Ivy
By noon, the photograph had become more dangerous than the missing money.
Wade called Celeste repeatedly.
She refused to answer until Arthur confirmed the calls could be recorded.
When she finally accepted, Wade spoke before she could say a word.
“Brynn is lying.”
“About which part?”
“The message on the photograph.”
“What does she mean by saying Ivy was never yours?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I swear.”
Celeste stood beside the window in her father’s lake house. Ivy slept in the bassinet behind her while Rosa folded tiny blankets across the room.
“You brought that woman into our home,” Celeste said. “You allowed her to wear my clothing. You abandoned me during surgery. And now you want me to trust your word?”
“I made a mistake.”
“No, Wade. Forgetting an appointment is a mistake. An affair lasting months is a decision.”
“It didn’t last months.”
“How long?”
He hesitated.
“How long?”
“Since January.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Six months.
While she had been pregnant.
While Wade had attended prenatal appointments pretending to care.
While Brynn had helped plan the company’s annual gala and smiled at Celeste across dinner tables.
“Did Lorraine know the entire time?”
“She suspected.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Yes.”
Rosa stopped folding.
Celeste turned away so Rosa would not see fresh tears gathering in her eyes.
“Your mother helped you hide it.”
“She thought I was unhappy.”
“And that justified betraying me?”
“No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
Wade exhaled.
“Because Brynn made me feel important.”
The honesty was almost more insulting than a lie.
Celeste looked around the quiet bedroom.
She had financed Wade’s ambitions, protected his reputation, and allowed him to take credit for her ideas. Yet he had needed another woman to make him feel important.
“I made you important,” she said. “You just never respected the person who made it possible.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No. What happened to me was not fair.”
Ivy stirred.
Celeste lowered her voice.
“What does Brynn have?”
“Emails. Contracts. Copies of your digital signature.”
“Where did she get them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You gave her access.”
“I gave her access to campaign files, not your private records.”
“Did you ever use my laptop?”
Silence answered her.
Celeste remembered leaving her laptop unlocked in the study during pregnancy. Wade often entered the room claiming he needed the printer.
“How many times?”
“I signed a few routine approvals.”
“With my name?”
“I was trying to keep projects moving.”
“You impersonated me.”
“I didn’t think it mattered. You always approved what I asked for.”
“Not always.”
“You never said no when it counted.”
Celeste almost laughed at the entitlement in his voice.
To Wade, her past generosity had become permanent consent.
“You are going to speak with the investigators,” she said.
“I need protection.”
“From Brynn?”
“From prosecution.”
Celeste’s expression hardened.
“You should have thought about that before stealing from my company.”
“I did not steal.”
“Then cooperate and prove it.”
Wade lowered his voice.
“If I help you find Brynn, will you stop the divorce?”
“No.”
“What about my job?”
“No.”
“Then why should I help you?”
The question revealed more than any confession.
Even now, Wade saw truth as a bargaining tool.
“Because the alternative may be prison.”
She ended the call.
That afternoon, Wade met voluntarily with forensic investigators. His attorney sat beside him while he described the affair, the consulting payments, and Brynn’s access to executive systems.
He admitted using Celeste’s electronic signature on three documents.
The auditors had found seven.
Wade insisted Brynn must have created the remaining four.
Then investigators showed him evidence of a life-insurance policy.
Six months earlier, a $5 million policy had been opened on Celeste.
The beneficiary was Carrington Consulting LLC.
Wade stared at the document.
“I’ve never seen this.”
The application carried his signature.
His attorney requested a break.
Meanwhile, Arthur brought a copy to Celeste.
She read it twice before understanding.
“Why would his consulting company be the beneficiary?”
“Wade claims he did not authorize it.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe someone used his signature, just as someone used yours.”
“Brynn?”
“Possibly.”
Celeste touched Ivy’s tiny hand.
The affair had wounded her.
The financial theft angered her.
But the insurance policy frightened her.
Five days earlier, she had nearly died from complications during childbirth. Her blood pressure had dropped. Doctors had rushed her into surgery.
Wade had known she was in danger.
Yet he never came.
“Arthur, did anyone speak to the hospital?”
“About what?”
“My surgery. The complications began after I became dizzy at home. Lorraine gave me tea that morning.”
Arthur’s face changed.
“What kind of tea?”
“I don’t know. She said it would calm the contractions.”
“Did you tell your doctors?”
“No. I didn’t think it mattered.”
Arthur immediately contacted Celeste’s physician.
Hospital records showed unexpected traces of a sedative in Celeste’s blood. The amount had not been fatal, but it could have contributed to her dangerously low blood pressure.
The medication had not been prescribed to Celeste.
It had, however, been prescribed to Lorraine.
By evening, the police requested an interview.
Celeste sat in the lake house library with Arthur and a detective named Marissa Cole.
“Mrs. Marlowe, we need you to describe exactly what happened before you went into labor.”
Celeste recounted the morning.
Lorraine had prepared tea.
Wade had left early for what he claimed was a business meeting.
Celeste became dizzy within an hour.
When contractions began, she asked Lorraine to drive her to the hospital.
Lorraine refused.
Celeste called an ambulance herself.
“Did Mrs. Carrington know about your life-insurance policy?” Detective Cole asked.
“I didn’t know about it.”
“What was her relationship with Brynn Hollowell?”
“I thought they barely knew each other.”
Arthur placed a photograph on the table.
It had been recovered from Lorraine’s public social-media account before the account was deleted.
The image showed Lorraine and Brynn dining together three months earlier.
The caption read:
Celebrating new beginnings with the daughter I should have had.
Celeste stared at it.
Rosa muttered something angry in Spanish from the doorway.
Detective Cole continued.
“We searched Ms. Hollowell’s condominium. We found no electronic devices, but we recovered a torn pharmacy receipt. The purchase included the same sedative found in your blood.”
“Was Brynn prescribed it?”
“No.”
Celeste felt cold.
“Are you saying they tried to harm me?”
“We are not making that conclusion yet. We are investigating.”
Arthur asked, “Where is Lorraine now?”
“At the mansion.”
Celeste looked toward him.
“Wade is there too.”
“He returned to pack.”
Detective Cole stood.
“We need officers at that property immediately.”
At the mansion, Lorraine was in the study feeding papers into the fireplace.
Wade entered carrying a suitcase.
“What are you doing?”
“Protecting you.”
He dropped the suitcase.
“Those are company records.”
“Those are lies Brynn created.”
Wade stepped toward the fire.
Lorraine blocked him.
“You wanted Celeste gone. I made certain you had a future after she was gone.”
Wade froze.
“What does that mean?”
Lorraine continued feeding pages into the flames.
“You were never going to become the man you deserved to be while married to that weak, manipulative woman.”
“She owns the company.”
“She stole it from you.”
“It belonged to her before we met.”
Lorraine’s expression twisted.
“Everything you built should have become yours.”
Wade pulled a half-burned document from the fireplace.
It was an insurance-policy statement.
His face drained of color.
“Why do you have this?”
Lorraine looked toward the doorway.
Blue lights flashed against the windows outside.
“You need to leave.”
Wade grabbed her wrist.
“Did you drug Celeste?”
Lorraine slapped him.
“Do not speak to me that way.”
“Did you?”
The front door opened downstairs.
Police announced themselves.
Lorraine’s composure finally cracked.
“I only wanted her calm. Brynn said the medication was safe.”
Wade stared at his mother.
“She almost died.”
“The doctors saved her.”
“And Ivy?”
Lorraine’s mouth tightened.
“You needed a son.”
The words seemed to destroy something inside Wade.
For the first time, he understood that his mother’s cruelty was not merely prejudice or arrogance.
She had viewed Celeste and Ivy as obstacles.
Police entered the study.
Lorraine tried to step away from the fireplace, but officers saw the burning documents.
She was detained for questioning and obstruction of an active investigation.
Wade stood silently as they escorted her outside.
Before entering the patrol car, Lorraine looked back at him.
“I did everything for you.”
Wade’s voice broke.
“No. You did it for the man you wanted me to pretend to be.”
At the lake house, Celeste watched the arrest through a live security feed Arthur had authorized.
She felt no triumph.
Only exhaustion.
A text arrived from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph of Ivy’s hospital bassinet.
The image had been taken through the nursery window on the night of her birth.
Below it was a message:
Wade was never the real target. Your father’s company was. Meet me alone, or the next photograph will be taken much closer.
Celeste stopped breathing.
Arthur read the message.
“Brynn?”
Celeste looked toward Ivy.
The baby slept peacefully, unaware that someone had transformed her existence into a threat.
Arthur called Detective Cole.
Within minutes, private security surrounded the lake house.
Celeste sat beside Ivy’s bassinet through the night, one hand resting on her daughter’s chest.
She had believed the worst moment of her life was opening the bedroom door.
Now she knew the affair had only been the first layer.
Brynn did not merely want Wade.
She wanted the company.
May you like
And she was willing to use a newborn child to get it.
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